If fracking is so great, why are so many people against it?

In previous posts specifically about Torchlight Energy's plan to frack on the Diablo Plateau/Otero Mesa ecosystem, I've discussed the fragile desert environment along with its diversity of flora and fauna. There's another concern: the health, safety and welfare of people. 

Torchlight Energy will poison a valuable aquifer with its cauldron of carcinogen chemicals used in fracking - an aquifer now valuable to farmers and ranchers but one day may be to El Pasoans. It is this baneful brew of benzene and other compounds, including methane, that has so many communities from Pennsylvania to California calling for a ban on fracking in their backyards.

It's not just that fracking companies like Torchlight Energy can continue to keep their lengthy list of fracking chemicals a secret while asserting that their "recycled" water and drilling do no harm. Scientists now know how to determine if water contamination comes from fracking. They now see fracker's fingerprints all over contaminated water. Green groups for a long time have said that agencies such as the EPA have underestimated the amount of methane leaked into the water supply.

The result is that city's are rising up and banning fracking. Last year Dallas did so. (Bet this is the first time that you have heard that.) Now with Frack Free Denton and Denton Drilling Awareness Group leading the way Denton is on the verge of saying NO to fracking in next Tuesday's election.

Of course, both Dallas and Denton are banning fracking within their own city limits. The Diablo Plateau is not only outside of El Paso but it is in a different county as well. However, if fracking there would immediately compromise our water and people would be igniting water coming out of their taps, there would be an outcry especially if many people develop skin blisters as is happening in other active fracking areas around the country. (Read the list of harms caused by fracking in Pennsylvania and New York as examples.) Our problem is more long term - the aquifer but could be short term with the added air pollution. (The wind blows from east to west you know during certain times of the year and much of the batch of benzene and other skull and crossbones chemicals that will spill on the desert ground will be blown our way.) It is hard to convince the country club bunch that an ecosystem is worth preserving. It is a bit easier to talk about the health and safety of folks even if they must think long term or believe the results of air monitoring - independent since we really can't depend on the TCEQ.

So what can we do? El Paso City and County might be able to place fees on companies which sell materials or provide labor or equipment to Torchlight or other frackers. I'm sure Torchlight will have to buy sand from El Paso and may have to lease other equipment from here. Put an onerous fee on those products and those services. Of course, some will say that Torchlight will go elsewhere and El Paso will lose the business. However, the cost of transporting sand and other products from too far will be huge. 

El Pasoans can also boycott companies that support Torchlight as well as sell to the public. 

I'm thinking out loud but that is what we must begin to do if there is any chance of deterring Torchlight or any other company from fracking just over the hill from our city and our county on privately owned land.

It's worth the effort.

Doing the Math: Where Will Torchlight Get All of Its Water?

Elpasonaturally has been following the recent acquisition of 172,000 acres on the Diablo Plateau by Torchlight Energy and their plans to frack as many as 2500 wells. See previous posts HERE and HERE.

Based on industry reports, the estimate for water used in one fracking operation is as low as 70,000 barrels or as high as 200,000 gallons. Assuming that a barrel equals 42 gallons, and noting Torchlight Energy's estimate that they may drill as many as 2500 wells on the Diablo Plateau southwest of Cornudas, Texas (just a hop from El Paso), then follow the math and weep and/or scream:

At the low end it takes about 2,940,000 gallons (70,000 barrels X 42 gallons/barrel) of water to "frack" one well. If you have 2500 wells as Torchlight Energy estimates may be the maximum number to drill on the Diablo Plateau southwest of Cornudas, then you need 7.35 billion gallons of water. Fracking can use up to 200,000 gallons per well or 8,400,000 gallons of water. Again, if 2500 wells, then the total usage is 21 billion gallons of water.  21 billion gallons equals 60% of all the water EPWU sold in 2013. (In 2013 EPWU billed its retail and wholesale customers for 35.1 billion gallons of water.) At the low end it is a third of that but still a whole lot of water.

Where will Torchlight get all of that water? 

I'm not saying that they will get it from El Paso. However, one wonders how much water there is below Dell City and the Diablo Plateau.

Of course, some of the water used in fracking is recycled - i.e., water that flows back from an operation along with all the toxic compounds or "produced" - water which results when some water which remains underground becomes more like the water naturally found in the shale. Unfortunately, the amount of such water is a small percentage of what is used. "In fact, according to a 2012 study by the Texas Water Development Board, only 2% of water in the Permian Basin and 5% of water in the Barnett Shale was recycled." This according to Power Shift. 

What is more troubling is figuring out where all this water can go without contaminating drinking water. It can be re-injected into the geologic formations which often results in earthquakes and/or contaminates the aquifer. It can be passed on to local water treatment plants which may be overwhelmed and may not be able to filter out all of the toxic chemicals and thus further pass those obnoxious compounds down the river for all of its agricultural consumers to use on crops. Or this unsustainable "recycled" water is spilled on the ground which is too frequently the case. (Read the information in a National Geographic blog. Also see from the NY Times: Waste Water Recycling No Cure-All in Gas Process.

Bottom line: Torchlight Energy's proposed drilling on 172,000 acres just east of El Paso should frighten us all whether they drill 2500 wells eventually or much fewer. There ought to be an outcry but don't expect any of the El Paso media to raise an alarm. In fact, expect stories about how good the fracking will be for the El Paso economy. Sorry - but that's not only wrong but immoral.

Get Ready

Imagine flying over the Diablo Plateau just past the Huecos from El Paso and seeing this. Get ready.

Fracking is known for its contamination of wells and groundwater. For instance, Californians have recently learned that frackers are dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into their groundwater. No wonder that people in Denton, Texas are fighting fracking in their community. Yet the damage to underground resources and subsequent health dangers to those above is not the only havoc reeked by the fracking industry. Social costs and damage to the surface ecosystems need to be weighed as well.

Food and Water Watch recently published a study on the social costs of fracking. (There are good summaries HERE and HERE.) Environment America has also issued a study. The social costs include impact on health, infrastructure, increased crime and sexual disease, negative impact on property values, on and on. 

But the environmental impact is not just deep underground. It is what happens to the surface: chemical spills, heavy trucks and other machinery destroying surface soil and cutting new roads from fracking pad to fracking pad. Indeed it is this surface damage that may be the highest cost of fracking especially in the desert.

The desert surface is so valuable and so vulnerable. The soil teems with life and that life is essential for the plants and animals of the region. Lichens, mosses, liverworts, cyanobacteria all bind the surface and aid in water retention critical to the desert ecosystem. "The survival, growth, and reproduction of living things depends considerably on soil characteristics," according to Sonoran Desert expert, Joseph R. McAuliffe.  

Science Daily quotes American Society of Agronomy and Soil Science Society of America Member Mandy Williams: "These crusts kind of act like a living mulch across a desert, by protecting the surface from erosion. Once you disturb the soil surface, you're more likely to lose what little resources are available there."

[See good pictures of the life in the desert crusts HERE.] 

Thus, it is disheartening to learn that Torchlight Energy has acquired 172,000 acres on the Diablo Plateau southwest of Cornudas, Texas which is just a hop from El Paso. Consider the damage to the ecosystem of that plateau. Consider the social costs to Dell City and, yes, to El Paso. Get ready.